Tideless
by Twisted Mackeral
Summary: Rewritten after a reread so that Link is no longer female and with many of the glaring inconsistencies fixed.
1. Chapter 1

Very deep in the deepest vault of Hyrule Castle, with almost a mile of thick rock seperating the contents of this vault from the innocent denizens of Hyrule, the greatest mind in the Kingdom was tampering with the laws of magic. Well...'tampering' may not be the right word. 'Diddling' would be more accurate. The current diddler was a fairy - so technically couldn't die -, and he had lived thousands of years - so didn't much care if he did anyway -, and had once been a deity of infinite knowledge of all things magical - and so was supremely confident in his abilities as a diddler - which explained the impunity with which he was toying with Deep magic laws that aught not to be toyed with. Wild colours flowed across the vault walls as the rift in the centre of the room stretched and bulged. It kept wanting to collapse in on itself - to erase it's abominable self from the a dimension that didn't allow it, but the diddler diverted alien energies from around the multiverse into it, fueling it and stabalising it.

"You sure it's safe?" Navi screamed

A sweat bead trickled down Deku's head, threatening to drown him, as he worked his magic. "It's not supposed to be _entirely_ safe. This is a highly avant-garde investigation into theoretical magic."

"The thing is I don't feel very garde at all!" Navi yelled, ducking to avoid a large tendril of anti-magic-time-space-cotinuem that suddenly surged out from the central mass. "I feel considerably ungarded."

"I _think_ I know what I'm doing, Navi, now _please_, add more souls to the vortex before the entire outer portal matrix collapses."

"Because what a shame that would be," Navi said sarcastically, lugging forward a number of glass jars, and throwing them into the swirling energies. The jars tumbled into the rift, shattering, the poes screaming in horrific torment as they were torn apart.

"I love that noise," Navi sighed, moving away quickly.

In a matter of seconds, the rift had doubled in size. The extremities of the thing started to lash out and scrape against the vault's white stone walls. Where they touched, the stone became molten lava, or something worryingly biological-looking, or just vanished altogether.

"What happens if that thing touches us?" Link asked from the back of the room. A tongue of energy pulsated towards him, making a greedy, sucking noise. It reminded her of morpha.

"I…err...am not sure," Deku admitted, and hating himself for it. "You could be reverted to some younger or even foetal state, you could disappear completely, or you could cease to have ever been. Navi, test it."

"No way!"

The rift imploded smoothly in on itself, Deku manipulating the energies like a master conductor, until it formed a flat disk of light, two metres in diametre, hovering vertically at them. Gradually, the energies sifted out, forming a ring around the edge and a clear centre, through which it was possible possible to see through into another world. It was quite dark. A few drops of rain came through the portal and spotted the stone floor.

Deku heaved a sigh as he relaxed his concentration. "The wormhole is stable. You may pass through safely now. I shall wait on this side and reopen the portal on your signal."

Link rose from the sack of potatoes on which he'd been sitting and approached it.

"It _is_ safe, right?"

"For the last time, yes! Theoretically, it's infallible. There is a roughly two percent probability of the molecular structure of any item passing through the portal reaching the other side more or less in about the same sortof configuration as when it left. Since I'm an omnipotent being I'm quite capable of selecting those universes in which that is the case and erasing all where the disintegrating occurred in transit."

Link stared cautiously at the worm hole, not knowing the meaning of many of the words Deku had just said, but knowing words starting with 'dis' were rarely good.

"Is it safe?"

"That depends entirely on your point of view."

"Is it safe, Deku?!"

"Hypothetically…….yes."

"What does hypothetically mean?"

"……it means...absolutely, no doubt," said Deku, after some thought.

"Really?"

"Yes."

"OK, then," said Link, and jumped into the hole.

There was a feeling of extreme speed, followed shortly by a feeling of being turned inside out, molecule by molecule.

There was a feeling of extreme speed, followed shortly by a feeling of having her face sucked off by a vacuum.

There was a feeling of extreme speed, followed shortly by a feeling of having every atom in her body crushed down to the size of a pinprick.

There was a feeling of extreme speed, followed shortly by the feel of rain on his skin and slippery cobbles beneath his feet. He found himself in an empty street, the light from Hyrule spilling out through the rift behind him, illuminating the night.

"That seemed quite painless," Link commented, as Navi appeared beside him.

The rift closed behind them with a gurgle, expelling a last blast of ozone, burnt air, and farewell from Deku. What light it had supplied was gone. They found themselves stood alone in an unlit street, without even moonlight to see by.

In fact, there didn't even seem to be a moon.


	2. Chapter 2

"Thank Goddess' we found this place," Link said as he pushed open the door of the Stock Pot Inn. He instantly began to assess his statement.

The Inn did nothing to remove the coldness of the night that had permeated to her bones. Navi made a quiet remark about it being colder than outside. It was a quiet remark because it was the sort of somberly silent place that promoted you to be quiet, not just the Inn (which appeared to be dead), but the entire Town. They hadn't seen a single person on the streets yet. It was eeiry.

Crossing to the empty front desk, Link rang the bell. The tiny, tinny sound rang down the draughty corridors. Nobody appeared. He rang again. Nothing but rats stirred within.

There was considerable evidence that the place had once seen much better days. What had once no-doubt been rich and expensive-looking paintwork was peeling badly, the lobby pot plants were long-dead, and the little nodding cow's head had fallen off and lay at it's hooves, it's little painted smile faded to nothing. A feel of damp pervaded the place.

"This place is a dump," Navi commented. And then the owner was there.

He had appeared suddenly and silently at just the point where the words "this place was a dump" were on their journey between Navi's brain and Navi's mouth. He gave her a slow, blank stare, which made her back off a little, and then said, "yes?"

Maybe he was so silent because he was so much like a ghost, Link thought. His skin was pale, filmy, and stretched unnaturally across his bones when he talked, giving him a rather gaunt, older appearance. The suit he wore was black, grey, and white, almost as if he was attending a funeral. His eyes were dim and laclustre. The only source of colour on him was his violet hair, but it was cut so short and tidy that any cheering effect on his features was lost.

"You wanted something?" he asked again, in clipped tones.

"A room for the night."

"That'll be five rupees, sir. All the rooms are free, the locks are all broken, and there's nothing worth stealing anyway. Thank you for your custom."

And with that and their five rupees, he dissapeared away intro the darkness of the house.

"Nice place," Navi mouthed, as they headed for their room.


	3. Chapter 3

Link pressed his weight against the door as the handle rattled for the third time that night. Eventually the group of drunks on the other side of the door gave up and stumbled off down the corridor, spewing expletitives and spew.

"This world sucks," Navi growled from he floor beside him. "I vote we go home in the morning."

"That's all the more reason for us to stay. This place looks like it needs saving."

"If you want to do it a favour, get a pile of straw and some matches." She glowered irritably at the damp living conditions. "Not that this place would even burn well."

He dug into his pocket and pulled out the piece of parchment that had arrived at Hyrule Castle three days ago. Deku had been woken in the middle of the night, screaming bloody murder about somebody raping the laws of physics, and led them to the treasury in time to see a small portal dissapearing, and the parchment falling out of it. By Navi's light, he reread the three words scrawled on it in large, childlike letters:

FAIRY KID HELP

"That could be any fairy kid! You're just being egotistical."

"Navi, most of the Kokiri can't even tie their own shoelaces. What help would they be?"

"Maybe...maybe they need the know-it-all-brothers to teach them about using maps," she said desperately. "You don't have to save everybody, you know. And I bet, right now, back at the castle, Zelda's getting kidnapped again."

"Try to get some sleep, Navi."


End file.
